Dig a soil pit

Remember digging holes in the dirt as a kid? Grown up farmers should be doing this too. A soil pit will visually tell you what's going on in the deep earth layers that are supporting your crops.

Jodi DeJong-Hughes is a crop extension educator at the University of Minnesota and spends a lot of time in soil pits. She says with a backhoe, the pit is dug four feet down across four rows of crops. Then, she jumps in and starts analyzing what she sees.

"I look for compaction and also for soil structure. So, I take my knife and I just go across the whole profile. Where's there's no compaction things flake out pretty easily. Where there's compaction I've literally broken knives trying to dig at it," says DeJong-Hughes. "And then, I figure out where those are at and the farmer can almost tell you where the wheel traffic's going to be, how he lines up in the field. The wheel traffic will look like a big "U" in the soil."

She also looks at the root structure, how deep they are and how far they're growing out to the sides.

Two soil pits are ideal for a good visual comparison. Dig one where the field seems to be doing well and the other where it's not doing so well.

"If they can, I usually do one in the grass just so they can see the best of structure, and then do one in the field," she says. "I dig out some well-structured soil and poorly-structured soil and say, which one's going to blow away easier, which one will let the rain in easier, which one will the roots be able to grow through easier?"

If you want to see what erosion looks like, dig a soil pit at the top of the hill and at the bottom of the hill. She says you will be very surprised at the difference.